Thursday, September 4, 2014

Obstacles...Bring Em by Maria Federici (Doyle)

As humans, we often feel invincible and yet every day we see
and hear of death, atrocities, dismemberment and other terrible things that
happen within people’s lives. It takes
just a moment, and an unlikely or just unlucky happenstance to change someone’s
life forever.

In Obstacles…Bring Em by Maria Federici (Doyle), we are
given a look at how just such an unlikely accident changed Maria’s own life,
and in doing so changed the path she had mapped out for herself. In her own
words and using the memories of her friends and family members, she details her
life as it transformed after a fateful day in February of 2004. The life she
knew changed drastically when a piece of unsecured furniture fell off a vehicle
ahead of her and broke apart, sending a large piece of particle board through
her windshield and into her head creating massive brain and facial injuries as
well as blindness.

This is not a story of sadness and despair, but one of
bravery and courage, and an unstoppable will. Maria may have perished that
night from massive injuries and yet due to the courage of the EMTs and those
surrounding her, she fought her way back to life and has continued not just
surviving but living again. She has overcome many challenges and obstacles and
yet perseveres. Never one to give up she
continues to work on overcoming her trials including that of her memory.

By deposing her friends, family and many of the medical
staff involved in her recovery she pieces together her time of darkness, the
circumstances of that one fateful night and the following day, months and years
as she fought to not just live but to move forward. There is a grittiness and gutsiness
to her story that makes you want to cheer her on and get to know her even
better.

She does not expect sympathy nor does she want it. She wants
to live her life much like she had planned. There is a quality of freedom and
goodness in her fight and she finds a way to voice her feeling through her
words and those who have gone through much of the recreation of her new life
with her.

If you like stories of courage and survival you will enjoy
this work. To have not just survived this
ordeal but to have pushed forth and continued the fight with all the things
working against her, helps to bring home how determination is what makes things
happen.Here is how in real life we
begin to see how ‘attitude creates altitude’.

This would be a great book for a reading and or discussion
group. There is a great deal of information and a depth of emotion which always
seems to create fodder for conversation.

Rating 3/5

This book was received free from the authors publicist. All opinions are my own based on my reading and understanding of the material.